There are lots of Linux users who don't care how the kernel works but only want to use it is not only a tribute to how good Linux is, but it also brings up issues that I would never have thought of otherwise.
There are lots of Linux users who don't care how the kernel works, but only want to use it. That is a tribute to how good Linux is.
I'm not worried about the kernel itself or the basic system. All the commercialization is about the distributions and the applications. As such, it only brings value-added things to Linux, and it doesn't take anything away from the Linux scene.
Android is very different from the GNU/Linux operating system because it contains very little of GNU. Indeed, just about the only component in common between Android and GNU/Linux is Linux, the kernel.
I never got into Linux. I swear to God, it's only lack of time. I'm past the years of my life where I can really dig into something like running a Linux system. I'm very sympathetic to the whole idea; Linux people always think the way I want to think.
Linux has more than satisfied any small initial expectations I had. It's simply incredible how successful Linux has been, and how good a time I've had developing it and leading the project. It does take a lot of my time, but it's time I really enjoy spending, and Linux has continued to be challenging both technically and from a managing standpoint.
A lot of people want to have market share numbers, lots of users, because that's how they view their self worth. For me, one of the most important things for Linux is having a big community that is actively testing new kernels; it's the only way to support the absolute insane amount of different hardware we deal with.
I currently use Ubuntu Linux, on a standalone laptop - it has no Internet connection. I occasionally carry flash memory drives between this machine and the Macs that I use for network surfing and graphics; but I trust my family jewels only to Linux.
There were open source projects and free software before Linux was there. Linux in many ways is one of the more visible and one of the bigger technical projects in this area, and it changed how people looked at it because Linux took both the practical and ideological approach.
Today, I use Linux as my primary OS (on an x86 PC, and on a Thinkpad), and I also use Irix (on an SGI O2). Linux has improved a great deal since I wrote this, specifically with respect to its ease of installation.
Android's user-space is so different from stock Linux, you can easily say that Android is not in any way a Linux system, except for the kernel.
It's been a bit sad to see that out of Linux distributions, it was Android - the most successful mobile Linux distribution - that has really introduced the malware problem to the Linux world.
I started Linux as a desktop operating system. And it's the only area where Linux hasn't completely taken over. That just annoys the hell out of me.
The big problem that is holding back Linux is games. People don't realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior. We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well.
I was Computer Shopper's linux columnist for more than half a decade, from the late 90s onwards. Yes, I know about Linux. (My first review of a Linux distro in the press was published in late 1996.)
There's innovation in Linux. There are some really good technical features that I'm proud of. There are capabilities in Linux that aren't in other operating systems.
There are a lot of people who've been able to ditch their Windows machines and switch over to Linux because they can now use their Exchange server for calendaring and collaboration from their Linux desktop.